Publication year

We present a ‘new and improved’ version of Rabo’s Emerging Market Vulnerability Heatmap which is constructed from a more comprehensive list of inputs. The heatmap highlights ARS, TRY and ZAR as the most vulnerable emerging market currencies.

Sub-Saharan Africa is facing headwinds from lower commodity prices, China’s slower growth, and normalization of monetary policy in the US. This has made the region’s economic outlook challenging, though not imminently gloomy.

To reverse the growing food and agriculture trade deficit and deliver on its potential, Sub-Saharan Africa must develop food and agriculture value chains. The enabling environment for doing this differs widely and is strongly linked to countries’ broader institutional development.

Sub-Saharan Africa is facing headwinds from lower commodity prices, a slower growing China and possibly rising US interest rates. This has made the economic outlook gloomier but we still expect the region to grow about 4% in the near future.

While there will be a devaluation of the Chinese renminbi, the dollar will also become stronger more generally in 2016, due in part to the Fed’s interest rate increases. The ECB is more likely to do the opposite, which will weaken the euro/dollar currency pair further still. Slightly higher capital market rates can be expected though.

Economic growth in EMs disappoints again due to lower commodity prices and China’s slowdown. Higher growth in the Eurozone will result in a pick-up of growth in developed countries, but this will not be enough to prevent a slight slowdown in global growth.